‘Growing up as a gay lad in Barnsley, I relied on episodes of Will and Grace for my initiation into the gay world.’ Sean Hayes as Jack McFarland, Eric McCormack as Will Truman in Will and Grace.
Photograph: NBC/Getty Images

In a 2003 episode of Will and Grace, Fagmalion, Will (the sensible, career-driven one who’s always the butt of fat jokes) and Jack (the promiscuous, youth-obsessed one who’s always jumping between jobs and lovers) decide to embark on a kind of “gay renovation” of cousin Barry. One day Barry arrives at Will’s flat, bemoaning the cost and lack of comfort of a new pair of Gucci loafers, to which Jack and Will respond: “Choosing fashion over comfort, living beyond his means ... Boy George, he’s got it!”

It’s scenes like these that research being carried out by Anglia Ruskin University is getting at when it comments that gay men, faced with “seemingly positive stereotypes” risk potential damage as certain shows “paint gay men as one-dimensional figures and prevent people from seeing someone’s true personality”. If only the biggest problem facing young gay men in this country was that the stereotypes they were exposed to were too positive, and thus damaged their self-esteem.

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There is some truth in the theory, although the examples cited seem American-centric and dated (old classics like Will and Grace, Sex and the City, and the role of the “gay best friend” in films like My Best Friend’s Wedding). Growing up as a gay lad in Barnsley – before social media or dating apps and without an educational policy that could inform and educate students responsibly – I did rely on episodes of Will and Grace for my initiation into the gay world. This left me feeling that I had to either be rich (which I wasn’t) or promiscuous (which seemed like a much more achievable goal). And either way I certainly had to be thin.

Fagmalion aired more than a decade ago and things, particularly in the US, are changing, with shows such as Glee and Looking attempting to be more diverse and progressive in their portrayals of gay life. What of British TV though? If only our problem was that we were being killed with kindness.

I half-watched two different detective shows last year where the suspect turned out to be hiding a secret: he was gay. And that’s what partially motivated his crimes, his desire to keep things quiet. Elsewhere, the Continuing Dramas still use sexuality as a character trait, as a storyline. A heterosexual character in a soap might be a murderer, or a liar, or a thief; a homosexual character is simply that: homosexual. The heterosexual character might get a meaty storyline; the homosexual character will struggle to realise he’s homosexual, then come out, and then there will be the months of fallout from that coming out, and then he might do something else that revolves around him being gay.

Gay men, by the way, white gay cisgendered men like me, have it easier than people of colour on the LGBT spectrum, than all trans people, when it comes to representation on television. Seeing themselves represented fairly and honestly on television could improve the well-being and happiness of a whole range of people with different sexual and gender identities.

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A show like Looking in America seemed to be a step in the right direction. Diverse body types, different careers, a plethora of interactions with friends and family that reached out further than sex and sexuality. Yet, as characters, they were still defined by their homosexuality, or rather how their homosexuality ranked against each other’s.

Patrick felt inadequate next to Dom’s masculinity or Agustin’s sexual adventure; Dom felt old next to Patrick’s youth; Agustin felt aimless next to Patrick’s drive. Each of them were failing, in their own mind, and it’s not their fault they felt like that. Patrick probably grew up watching Will and Grace. The characters have been socialised in the same way we all were, watching the stereotypes play out on screen.

The happiness and self-esteem of the LGBT community will go up when anyone can be outside in any small village or town and feel safe to be who they are. More than ever, young people are being socialised and moulded by the media they consume; they deserve characters who are three-dimensional, and whose sexuality is simply a part of their wider being, rather than a framing device for a storyline.